The Business of Selling Out and Buying In: A Shield Series
by DrunkOnJerichohol
Summary: How are each of the Shield members coping after their very public disintegration on the June 2, 2014 edition of Raw? Get a glimpse into the mind of Seth Rollins to find out. Part III.


**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. Any and all original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.

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><p>AN: I'm a full week late, but I've finally got the conclusion to this series all ready to go. I hate that it took me this long, as my initial plan was for this to be posted last Monday, but, hey, better late than never, right? I hope those of you who have reviewed, faved, and followed the previous parts know how appreciated you are, because your kindness doesn't go unnoticed. Also, to BubblyShell22, I'm not sure whether Dean/Renee are actually together or if it is only a rumor, but I thought they would be cute together, so I rolled with it anyway. Hope that answers your question. ;)

Thanks so much for reading, and for always being such a great source of encouragement. You're the greatest readers of all!

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><p>June 2, 2014 is a day that will live on in infamy.<p>

That deleterious Monday night, I turned my back on my soul brothers. Even now, as I acknowledge this sad fact, a shiver zips down my spine and chills me to my core. My toes curl up in my shoes, adding unnecessary pressure to my joints, and the contents of my stomach churn like cream in a vat — as the milk is transformed into soft butter — except instead of butter, weeks of built-up stomach acid brought about by anxiety pool into my abdominal cavity. Or so it feels. Believe it or not, being a WWE Superstar is not all that encompasses me; I am an actor, and I prove my thespian talents every night, as such.

My lips curl into a smile/snarl sort of expression during my contemptible doings on Raw, and I make it known each night how proud I supposedly am of my decision to ditch Roman and Dean. Thing is, I'm not proud at all. My back was wedged in a corner, and I did what I felt I had to do to survive in the moment. That's not an excuse, and it doesn't change the situation, but I hope it adds a little insight into my thought process on that night, when I tossed all my previous plans to hell. My life was never supposed to be this way. I was never supposed to embark on a journey that required me to become a lone wolf.

It sounds funny, but ever since I went along with The Authority's deceitful promises, I've never felt so alone in my life. I'm constantly surrounded by tons of people, but I may as well be in a locked, vacant room each night. My intelligence alone alerts me to the knowledge that Hunter and Steph aren't granting me any long-term favors. They're stringing me along, using me for their purposes for as long as possible, until it's safe for them to toss me away and find another little pet to do their bidding. I'm not stupid, all right? I _know_ this, but maybe I'm smarter than they think, because using a person for all they've got isn't limited to a one-way street. I can use right along with the best of 'em.

The Authority has fairly broad goals, most of which include world domination, or at least primary control of the WWE. My goals are more career-geared, as in, I crave the opportunity to become a renowned world champion someday. I've got what it takes, and temporarily being under the ruling thumb of the WWE's sole A-list couple allows me to pay my dues and hop onto the necessary stepping stones as they come, ahead of the rest of the pack. In that sense, we're each siphoning our needs from one another, and that's what it is. A give and take. I scratch their backs, and they scratch mine.

Contrary to popular belief, it hurt to leave my friends behind, and I never would have chosen this road, had I not anticipated being led to greater things in the future. I can already envision myself as the face of the company someday soon, knocking John Cena right off his haughty pedestal, and that's a sight that remained unseen to me when I was still leading The Shield around everywhere. We gelled well, clicked as a team, but working in groups isn't right for me. I'm used to operating solo and, even though I'm not technically working on my own right now, I'm getting there. What better way to learn how to be a one-man power machine than to gain insight from the Cerebral Assassin himself, one of the best in the business?

He's been better for me than anyone, and I don't expect to hold onto this professional alliance forever, but I'd like to keep it running as long as possible. Picking the brain of one of the all-time greats is getting me places, and those places are a hell of a lot more boundless than the ones I was traveling to with Roman and Dean on either side of me. That's why I strayed the course, which is a hasty decision I've questioned every single day since I dished out those chair shots to the pair of men I had spent the bulk of my time with ever since we officially went on the road together, in November of 2012. Confident a guy as I am, even bordering on arrogant at times, I'm also not afraid to admit I don't possess all the answers.

I'm a wealth of knowledge, but that wisdom isn't infinite, so I can readily admit my faults, although I shy away from doing so in public settings, mostly since I've got a massive reputation to protect. Sometimes on weekends, I meet with Steph and Hunter, and we engage in these long, drawn-out discussions about what I want out of my time in the company. I dish out my hopes and dreams like scoops of delicious ice cream and they, in turn, feed me back what I need to hear. They could be sincere, I guess, and I like to think they genuinely care for me, but deep down, I know they're putting on a front to keep me working on their side.

Despite what is shown on television, and in spite of the hard-ass front he puts on, Randy Orton has sort of taken me under his wing, but his efforts depend on the day and his mood. He looks out for me on occasion, even when he gets pissed about my stepping on his toes, and in some ways, I'm a lot more confident of the depths of our friendship than the one I share with The Authority. Randy's good people, and I can talk to him about my feelings and trust that I will receive blunt honesty and respect in return. We duke it out sometimes, because we're both chomping at the bit for that top spot, but there's some genuine brotherly love entwined in there, too.

Make no mistake; it's not the same sort of bond I shared with my other boys, but it'll do for now. It holds me over, while I endure what has turned out to be the most difficult transition of my entire career. I meet with him before shows sometimes, after we grab tuna fish sandwiches from catering, which is our meal of choice on the regular, whenever there isn't a Chipotle restaurant nearby. We take a seat together in a random back room, and I pick his brain, just as I oft do with Hunter, except this is different, because Randy's closer to my age and understands me a little better. On this day, I leaned sloppily against the back wall with posture that would make a ballet instructor cringe, chowing down on my food.

"When you were in Evolution, then the guys turned on you, how did it feel after?" I asked, usually the first to strike up a conversation. Randy's lips instantly turned up at the corners, and he literally looked like he wanted to charge me and beat my ass for daring to encroach on such a tender subject. The first time I experienced this ire-filled look of his was when I asked if he would share his potato chips with me during a similar lunch. I don't even bat an eyelash when this happens anymore, but the first time? Oh boy, I almost wet myself. "Come on. You must remember it."

"That's a stupid ass question, Seth," Randy spat out after a moment, returning to his sandwich.

"It's not, though. It's like, I abruptly left this team that I had been so tight with, and the same thing happened with you and Evolution, even though you were pushed out unwillingly. I just want to know what you thought about in those following weeks and months. You must remember, right?" I asked. Randy glanced up at me through narrowed eyes, sending me that same look from earlier, and all I found it in me to do was shrug. Clearly, he wasn't in such a talking mood. I know, I know, you're probably thinking, 'When _is_ Randy Orton ever in a talking mood?' But he has his kinder moments, I swear.

"Shut up and eat, kid."

"Dude, you're barely older than me."

"Keep pushin'," he ordered, this time testing me. "We'll see how far you get with that attitude."

"Sheesh, I'm only askin' a question," I responded, taking a bite of my sandwich and washing it down with a heaving gulp of the ginger ale I'd grabbed from catering.

I'm not normally a soda-binging kind of person, but that particular choice in drinks enticed me a lot more than water or tea did. The catering selection had been much smaller than usual, both food and drinks, although I was unsure why. Regardless, I always made it a point to rehydrate with water or Gatorade before each show and especially before my matches, so my beverage of choice right then wasn't a huge concern. The only reason my mind had fixated on the damn soda was to escape Randy's distasteful looks from across the room. He's a lot like a big brother to me, but I get the feeling I'm like the little brother he loves to hate.

He took a deep, reflective breath as he chowed down, eyes falling into a squint as he seemingly thought back to that blast from the past, right down to the exact second he received a thumbs down from Triple H. His eyes flashed along with the sights and sounds he was experiencing all over again, precisely up to the moment his back was slammed onto the mat. I had taken him back to a point in time that wasn't always easy to recall, but I'm sure he fed off of that night whenever he needed inspiration to press forward in the ring. We all do that, really. We think back to the worst betrayal of our careers and use that as fuel to seek and carry out revenge on our sworn enemies who hurt us in times past, or in some cases, we take that pain out on innocent parties.

Hell, in some manner, I fear Roman and Dean more than anybody else on earth, simply because of my opportunistic trickery that led to our violent parting of ways. They had the most to lose coming off of the breakdown of The Shield, and since I was the one to slam those chairs into their bodies, not stopping until they were bruised and broken, they'll use that moment as fuel. Their minds will roll the images out on replay, the exact second I carried out my plans for a future devoid of them, and it will be the ammunition they'll use to tear me limb from limb. I know they're coming back for me eventually, even if they get sidetracked for a while by other guys, and I'll try to prepare for that time, but I know I can only be so ready.

Some things just can't be planned in advance, though, so I spend my days and nights afraid of their retribution, but I probably should be, after the havoc I wreaked on their lives. I was shocked out of my reverie when Randy's low drone cut into my daydreams. It seemed he was ready to talk, and I had caught him mid-sentence. "...always be a part that thinks you could have done something different, but fuck it. You can't go back; you can only go forwards."

I wasn't confident enough to ask him to repeat the first part of his sentence, since it was a wonder I had gotten him to open up at all. Sometimes he was more receptive than others, but even in his closed off state, he was letting me in, and that felt good. It felt like progress, actually. "Yeah, I feel ya on that."

"You regretting turning on Roman and Dean?" he asked, smirking when my eyes widened at the notion. He knew he had hit the nail on the head, and he was satisfied by that. If there was one thing I knew about Randy, it was that he loved getting people to feel whatever _he_ wanted them to feel. "I knew it. You're runnin' scared, aren't ya?"

"No," I scoffed, as if his suggestion were the most ridiculous idea in the world. But it wasn't, and I knew this. He knew it, too.

"Don't tell me you're goin' soft. I thought you were supposed to be over all that bullshit, man."

"You weren't over it back when Hunter and Batista did it to you," I pointed out. Deflection was always a treasured defense mechanism of mine. Whenever I grew uncomfortable with any situation, it was a way to shift the negative attention off of me, onto someone else. Too bad Randy was constantly two steps ahead of me and knew exactly what end result I desired. I still kept with it, though, trying my damnedest to shift the focus. "You just said you asked yourself all the time if there was something you could have done differently to keep your team from turning on you."

"This isn't really about me, though, is it?" Randy asked, locking eyes with me and shaking his head with deliberate slowness.

He raised an eyebrow, sending another silent question my way, and took another bite of his sandwich, tossing a couple of chips in behind it. I hated being eyed like that, and, as a matter of fact, Hunter did that to me all the time, too. It was like they insulted my intelligence, looked at me like I was this stupid little side lackey, rather than one of their respected peers. If that was the way things would be, maybe I would consider venturing out on my own for real this time. Who needs people, anyway? Definitely not me!

"Whatever. I was just trying to see what your experience was like."

Randy groaned. "And now you're getting defensive."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"I'm not!" I shouted, actually slamming my closed fist down on the empty chair beside me, which made a deafening clink.

There that stealthy smirk reappeared, spreading back across Randy's face, because he knew. He had me right where he wanted, and I had allowed my emotions to be toyed with by the one guy I was supposed to be proving my mental strength and clarity to. Randy didn't have to impress me. He had been around forever and was one of the few young, great vets we had retained. It was my responsibility to show him what I was made of, and in allowing my raw emotions to play a role in our talk, I had just proven I wasn't ready for the big time yet. He would probably report his findings to Hunter and Steph, and then I would be right back where I started, which was nowhere at all.

"Just as I thought," Randy chuckled, still shaking his head subtly. "I apply a tiny bit of pressure and you crack like an egg. Hunter told me to keep an eye on you for this very reason, just so you know." He paused, wiping his messy fingers on a slightly balled napkin. "I'm not sure why I'm even telling you this, but he wanted me to watch you, to make sure you could handle all the pressure."

"I can."

"You cannot either," he argued. "You can't! I called you one little name and you snapped like a twig. You're not tough enough. Hunter knows this, and I know this, and even Steph knows it. You wanna be taken seriously around here, you got a long way to come, _kid_," he repeated, emphasizing the nickname I had come so much to detest.

I don't think he was looking to insult me so much as he wanted me to understand that they knew. I wasn't ready to be a top guy, and apparently everyone and their mother was aware, except for me...and my own mother, whom, incidentally, I had been calling nonstop to dispense my personal progress report to. She thought I was keeping in stride, mostly because that was what I told her, and I told her that because I thought it to be true. Except, it wasn't. I was on the bottom rung of the WWE ladder, being molded by a bunch of people who I was starting to realize didn't truly have my back. I liked to think they did, but in a sense, I was a laughingstock to them.

Dean confronted me once backstage, shortly after our stable's untimely demise. Aw, who am I kidding? He came at me dozens of times, always stopped by security before any real damage could be inflicted, but he called me weak and a coward. He used to shout at the top of his lungs that he knew why The Authority had chosen me to join their team. He said it was because they saw a weak link in our group and they attacked it. According to him, I was that weak link, and it wasn't until that very day that I was beginning to suspect he might be right. In the mind of The Authority, I was simply a boy amongst men, and that stung even worse than the knowledge that there was no running back to The Shield. I couldn't rejoin what I had single-handedly destroyed, and that hurt my soul. It really did.

Rocked me to my core.

All those times outsiders had referred to a potential "weak link" in our group, they had been talking about me, and now, I was the joke of the company, because it had taken me up until this point to figure it out. I was the punchline of the biggest wisecrack of all, and nobody was laughing with me, because they were far too busy laughing _at_ me. Randy continued watching me with that silly grin on his face that I would have loved to smack right off, but I still had to work with this man, even if every fiber of my being screamed at me not to. He rubbed his hands together a few times, then slid his empty paper plate off his lap, pleased with the turn our discussion had taken. At least one of us was satisfied with this bitter outcome.

"You getting it now?" Randy questioned, in his snotty tone that made me feel less like his brother all the time. "You're finally seeing this whole situation for what it is, huh? I can tell you are. You've got the same look on your face that I had when I realized my time in Evolution was coming to an end. It wasn't my turn to be a star back then, and maybe now isn't yours, either, but don't worry. It'll come around eventually, if success is meant for you."

"Are you telling me I'm getting kicked out of The Authority?" I asked, even though the very notion struck me as completely preposterous. There was no good reason for The Authority to lure me away from my brothers, only to toss me away in a matter of months, unless that had been the plan all along. They didn't want me, but they didn't want anyone else to have me, either. Sounded like all the makings of an abusive significant other.

"I'm not telling you anything except to watch your own back. This is a ruthless business, and it would behoove you to stay on top of shit. You never know when your time is up within a group, which goes for any group, and that's the danger of working with others. You can go it alone and have no one to ever watch your back, or you can join up with people and hope they'll keep their word. No guarantees either way, but at least with The Authority, you have hope, even if your luck is about to run out."

"Is it about to run out, Randy? Be honest."

"What did I just say?" he replied, shooting up from the steel chair he had gotten so cozy in several minutes before. Suddenly, I wasn't so hungry anymore, so I pushed the remainder of my sandwich aside and took a sip of my ale, hoping it might settle the nerves thrashing around inside my stomach. "One of these days, you're gonna realize you can't always go running to people for help or advice. There are some things you just gotta figure out on your own. I had to do it, and you're gonna have to do it, too, because there's nobody in this company who's going to hand you anything. Work for it."

He turned to leave and I sighed, slumping down even further against the wall and fully prepared to drown my sorrows in the remainder of my ginger ale, all while nursing it like a cold beer at a dim bar. I leaned my head back against the wall and shut my eyes, expecting to hear the sweep of the door as it shut behind Randy, but what I received instead was an unexpected commotion. My eyes snapped open fearfully when I heard the familiar scratch of a steel chair being folded, and Randy slammed the edge into the ceramic floor, which evoked a sharp cry, then raised it over his head next. In the split second it took to realize he was coming at me and there was absolutely nowhere to hide, I jumped up, throwing my arms in front of my face to cushion the blow.

Instead of the vicious snap of steel against my bare skin, I got laughter. Bold, enveloping, heaving laughter that made me question my sanity, because it didn't make sense that I had been so close to a chair shot and now everything was all hunky-dory. I lowered my arms and reopened my eyes to find Randy hunched over, slapping at his knee, as if he deserved an award for world's greatest comedian. I flinched and scratched my cheek, still reeling with uncertainty. Suddenly, a business I had been a part of since my teen years no longer made any sense whatsoever, and that scared me, because it meant I was losing my way.

Using his index knuckle to wipe tears of humor that had built in the corners of his eyes, Randy straightened back up, pointing at me like I were a schoolboy, and he, the bully who had just stolen my lunch money. "You see how easy it is? You let your guard down for one second and _bam_!" he yelled, slapping his palms together as the chair clanked to the floor. He took a couple aggressive steps toward me, but this time I didn't back down, and the tips of our noses touched as he stared into my eyes, the intense fire in his gaze igniting my own. He brought his right hand up on the side of our faces and snapped, the noise echoing off the hollow walls. "Just like that, it can be over in an instant, every single thing you've worked for since you got here. You better watch your back and stay alert. It's the only way you'll survive."

"Then I will," I barked, as if that were actually a good comeback. Really, though, what more could I say?

"Good. You better," Randy said, turning on his heel. I waited until he actually left the room to release the stunted breath I had been holding onto, and I slouched back down into my chair, tucking my head in my hands. Somehow, I had concluded my talk with Randy even more lost than before, and I had never felt so...desolate. I was alone, whether I wanted to be or not, and it wasn't until then that I took the credit for that situation being my own doing.

Buying in, selling out — what the hell's the big difference? Either way, you're making a choice to leave behind all morals and rational thought for a chance to be a star, who will someday morph into a legend. You toss away every morsel of what makes you who you are, all in an attempt to please others, who may, or may not, propel you where you want to go. On June 2, 2014, I made the most difficult decision of my entire life to turn on the boys I had entered the big ranks with, because I thought I could get farther without them than with them. Was I right? I thought so at the time, but after the words exchanged with Randy that day, nothing was clear to me anymore.

Really, the funny point that nobody seems to realize is that buying in and selling out are one in the same. Both acts are a release of all you hold dear in order to achieve a desired result, while you sit back hoping to reach a positive payoff for your choices. I get the same question over and over, too. It plays on repeat, whether a fan is yelling it at me as I cross the parking lot after a long night in the ring, or whether it's me, looking in the mirror and silently badgering myself about the spontaneous stunt I pulled that fateful night in Indianapolis. I mull over the question forward, backward, and every which way, but I can never seem to settle on a definitive answer. All I have are mere guesses to the single most asked question of the year:

Did I buy in or sell out?

If forced to choose, I would answer both; I bought in _and_ sold out all at once.

But, man, I sure hope to God it ends up being worth it.

**End Part III**


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